


Eye to Eye

by Dribbledscribbles



Category: The Magnus Archives
Genre: Not Happy, Short and messy little thing, hope you like monologues, not nice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:47:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24194554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dribbledscribbles/pseuds/Dribbledscribbles
Summary: In which Jonah Magnus attempts a post-apocalyptic pep talk.
Comments: 18
Kudos: 82





	Eye to Eye

_Click._

“Jon. We need to talk. We—well, I—need to make something very clear. Something not even all of Martin’s words of encouragement and rightful derision of my actions seemed to have gotten through your skull. 

“This was not your fault. By ‘this’ I refer to…well, basically everything since you made the mistake of signing your name on the contract. All of it. From point A to point Apocalypse you did make choices. You did step this way or that way and, at every turn, tried so hard to make the right choice. To do good, to save the world. I know that, objectively. I’m not insane, or eldritch, or thinking on a ‘different moral scale compared to mere humanity’ or whatever drivel the more try-hard avatars might use as their excuse.

“No. I am perfectly sane—as well as self-serving to the furthest extreme, clearly—and I can tell the difference between good and evil. I couldn’t have playacted as anything resembling a decent human being and confidante otherwise. Ergo, I know a good man when I see one. Rather hard to miss when you’re spying on his every waking action and iris-deep in his brain. I’ll not apologize for the latter, if that’s what you’re expecting. Not counting my interest in the grooming stage of becoming the Archivist, the ongoing calamity of your life as Jonathan Sims was the most entertaining distraction I’ve come across in all my centuries. Ask the Eye if I’m lying.

“It was rather like…well, I won’t go so far as to call it Shakespearean. When old Will wrote a tragedy, there was always some bit of self-sabotage in the doomed protagonist. Some hint of the hubris that would someday ruin him. And while you are not a character without flaws, none of them have come within spitting distance of responsibility for the pains you’ve endured. I orchestrated the majority of those, as you know. The Web likely even more. Both of us using the cattle prods of other Fears’ terrors to shoo you on towards the chopping block.

“You know that, Jon. You know it for a Fact. If you saw it on paper, you’d nod, admitting the math checked out. And yet?

“Look at you, Jon. Look at how much guilt you have laid upon yourself. How much self-loathing you've wrapped yourself in. For what? Let us count the ways.

“Sasha. Tim. Daisy’s humanity. Somehow not magically Knowing the cheat of ‘killing the Archivist to release the assistants’ until it was too late. Making the callous, cowardly decision to not die while in your coma. For being tricked and trapped by yours truly into opening the Door. God. You’d blame yourself for a car accident if it happened on the street you were walking down, wouldn’t you?

“Now, don’t get me wrong. Guilt is a fine show on its own. Lots of juicy misery to be had with guilt, even if all the woe and melancholy starts turning leaden the first few months in. And, in my experience, it’s one of the human emotions most likely to make a person jump to denial. 

“Whether it’s turning down the panhandler on the street corner for some loose change, or scratching someone’s car while opening your door, or, say, letting a couple billion people get consigned to an eternal hellscape for your own benefit, there’s always some little voice that leaps up in a person, ready to numb the guilt away, to tell them, no, no, it’s okay, it’s not on you. 

“How do you know that bum wasn’t running a scam? Better to keep walking, eyes forward.

“Look how close this idiot parked to the line, what did he think was going to happen? Maybe now he won’t try to straddle two parking spaces at the same time, the bastard.

“Who the hell wouldn’t take the gamble to become an immortal god-king at the expense of a world of squalling bit characters? As if a third, even half of the ignorant masses wouldn’t jump at the chance to enact a scheme like this for power and eternity. 

“Not that I really need anything like a little voice to soothe my conscience, of course. Can’t soothe what you don’t have. Ha.

“Apologies, that was a poor joke. An even poorer lie. For while my conscience is about as atrophied as such a thing can become short of being mummified, it is there. Rather, I think it would be truer to call it a sense of decorum. An inkling of when a bad joke has passed the threshold of being entertaining and hit a point of distaste. But I’m sidetracking.

“My point is, most people have that little voice, Jon. That internal, self-centered whisper there to tell them Don’t Worry, It Isn’t Your Fault. But not you. No, you got the exact opposite. A lifetime of unintentional conditioning; first from that dear old bat, Grandmother Sims, who welcomed you into her home the way one would a leprosy-infected cat. Then your school peers who knew at once they did not like you, your strange manner, so antiquated, so crippled in terms of social interaction, that your only defense was to pretend you were prickly rather than sad. And then?

“Then there was the anxiety-riddled rollercoaster of the Archives. After Sasha went and the monsters started piling up, well, it was open season on Jonathan Sims. Especially after you made the mistake of waking up from the coma, now the surely-evil-in-potentia Archivist. You couldn’t breathe without someone glaring at you. Before you go blaming your secret nibbling on live trauma, do remind me, what was it that Detective Tonner got up to? You know, before you risked your life to drag her out of the coffin? Was it murder? I seem to recall it was murder. And you, what? Spooked people? Gave them bad dreams? A hanging offense, surely.

“No one trusted you. Hell, bar a few moments with Tonner, no one even liked you. Half of Tim’s last words were used to say he ‘didn’t forgive you.’ For what? I mean that seriously. I truly wish I could have asked him before he hit the button. I’m assuming it was for making him an Archival assistant. You know, that position whose entrapment you also had no clue about until it was too late. Speaking of.

“Where the hell was my credit during all that mess? Yes, Melanie had her little murder attempts and there was a general miasma of hate towards my person the whole time, but honestly? I barely got two words out of anyone versus the whole scapegoating, accusatory filibusters they treated you to. 

“I was right there, the Web was right there, all fourteen actively aggressive Fears were right there, all of us jumping up and down, waving flags, setting off fireworks, announcing to any victim in earshot that yes! Here we were! Actual monsters! Very evil! Doing menacing things! Terrorizing humanity 24/7! Look, look!

“Meanwhile, they were slapping your hands for being too scary. Well, except for Detective Hussain. She was the one trying so desperately to be Gertrude-esque, promising to kill you if you dared to take another fresh meal. I’m sure her partner’s myriad—possibly guilty?—victims were all very impressed in their unmarked graves.

“Which was, forgive the expression, entertaining as hell. They have a whole pantheon of inhuman Entities and their supernatural worshippers running around, and they gang up on Jonathan Sims, the scarecrow who’d taken more beatings from said monsters than all of them combined. Hilarious, in its way. And I laughed. I’m sure the Web laughed too, as best it could.

“Not just at the unfairness of it all, though that was chuckle-worthy on its own.

“No, we laughed because the setup was just too perfect, Jon. What better chemistry could we ask for? Here you are, an avatar struggling desperately to remain human at his core, to be good, to do the heroic thing, to resist the urges that would make you healthy and strong and whole. And who was your support group? 

“One stranded crush being sequestered by Peter, and a gaggle of ungrateful, hypocritical, finger-pointing harpies who wouldn’t know accountability if it came up and bit them in the throat.

“Oh, it was the perfect arrangement. They would grate on you, in time. Get under your skin, push too hard, pile on the blame, hammer you over and over again with the cudgel of your mere existence until—finally—something would give. You’d snap. Jonathan Sims would be shrugged off like an ill-fitting coat, and there would be the Archivist, ravenous enough to drink all their minds out in one sitting. Dead or worse before a gun could be drawn or a knife could plunge. 

“…So we assumed. Hoped. Then, eventually, gave up on.

“Because your self-loathing would not allow you the luxury of anger at anyone other than yourself. All you did was nod along with them, with whatever fresh heap of accusations they left like steaming dog shit at your feet. ‘Yes,’ you thought. ‘They’re right. I’m a monster. I deserve this. It’s all my fault, whatever it is they’re blaming me for this week.’ On and on it went.

“And do you know what, Jon? You could Know, I suppose, but I doubt you’re in the right state to…hm. I’ll just tell you.

“I got sick of it. I’d go so far as to say I became nauseous at the Sight. I was outright angry by the time I had to make my exit and head back to the Panopticon. Because the guilt never changed in you, Jon. It got worse, yes. Bigger. But not an ounce of it converted into anger. Or, hell, basic logic. You never once brought it up to them that, hey, just a thought, maybe you didn’t have any good choices to make. Maybe you weren’t actively enjoying switching your diet plan from food and drink to sheets of paper and people’s nightmares. Had anyone considered that? No?

“No. No, no, no, you just sank deeper into the guilty mire and they all helpfully held your head down and nothing changed. There was no growth. No development. Just you, starving yourself and moldering in your own self-hatred.

“God, it made my teeth ache Seeing it all. Again, not from any surge of conscience, but from taste. There are only so many times you can kick a starving dog before the comedy wears off and you’re left there, waiting for it to bite the kicking leg already. But you never bit, Jon. Not once.

“Oh, you got a few hits in, sure. With the other avatars. Breekon, Peter. That thing that took Sasha’s life. All lovely displays, don’t get me wrong. But they were the ‘safe’ targets, weren’t they? Not human. Not blemishes on what you still consider such a stained record.

“Not until—would it be considered ‘the other day?’ Yesterday? A week ago? The timeframe’s murky, so—ah, it hardly matters. You Know what I mean.

“I do apologize for not handling this as gently as the event merits. It’s hard to fake sincerity when I’m just so, so proud. So gratified at this leap you’ve finally made. Though I’m sure you don’t share the sentiment.

“But Jon, if you trust me on nothing else, trust this: it was never going to end well. Not in a way your human self would have condoned. Jonathan Sims and all his kind lost a long time ago. But you? You, Jon? The Archivist? You have won and will go on winning. You are the crux of the Fears’ victory, the Eye’s supremacy. You are so far above them and what they were, Jon, higher than the sky. 

“And you did give them a chance, after all. A hundred chances. A thousand little opportunities to do better, to apologize, to be—ha—decent human beings to you. You really did. The Eye has it all recorded if you need proof. You gave them every shot a person in your position could give and a dozen more. 

“You told them about Angus, for God’s sake. You told them the truth. After you’d saved them from the Fears’ thrall, returned their minds to them from Hunt and Slaughter and The End. And what did they do?

“As if I have to ask. As if you were even surprised. The only thing that shocked you was that Martin was shocked. The poor man really was out of the loop all that time with Peter. Didn’t have half a clue about what they were really like. And you were ready to wait it all out, weren’t you? All the shouting, the fresh bout of blame, the hands shaking you like a ragdoll. 

“Georgie gave it a small effort, at least. Tried to calm Melanie down, even as she glared at you. But not Basira. Goodness, no. Not even Daisy and Martin combined were enough to keep her off you, all tears and vitriol.

“You even sat still when she asked the inevitable question: ‘If you die now, what would that do to the Eye? To the Fears?’

“And for your part, you did try to answer. You’d tried more than once already to get such an answer from the Beholding on your own before. Always it gave you that looking-into-the-sun treatment. An answer too big for your head, even as you are now. But you tried anyway. Because she asked.

“How many syllables did you get in before the gun came out, Jon? Two? Three? 

“You would have let her fire, wouldn’t you? Just to see if it did anything. If it would help. If it would let you off this ride.

“But the Archivist wouldn’t. Didn’t.

“Oh, I will replay that scene a million times in my mind’s Eye before I grow bored of it. Lord, their faces, Jon. The look on all of them as they realized the mistake they’d made. Karma come at last. Not that they recognized it as such; they had extremely loud little voices in themselves, all telling them how much of this mess wasn’t their fault, never their fault.

“At least until the Archivist showed them otherwise. The Archivist who fed them your whole miserable life, Jon. All in one sitting. Every injury, external or internal, every spasm of terror, every pain, every wretched second of you having to exist as yourself, crammed down their petulant throats in one giant boulder of horror. 

“And then some. The Archivist has so much to work with in terms of trauma, Jon. A whole world of victims in actual fear, in actual agony, not protected by the umbrella of your laughably loose definition of friendship. Perhaps the Archivist was trying to prove a point; to show them how grateful they should have been. Perhaps they only wanted revenge on your behalf. Perhaps it was even doing them a courtesy by punishing them outright.

“You already Know the Eye does not Look kindly on those who would dare to harm its Archivist, its dear Jon. Catatonia was a mercy more than anything.

“You Know that, Jon. You may hate Knowing it, hate Knowing that this, of all things, was the best-case scenario for their merry band, but you Know it regardless. As for Martin—

“Well. I do feel bad about Martin. But in the Archivist’s defense, he did pick a very poor time to jump into the line of fire. An even worse time to tell them to ‘stop, stop, don’t do this, snap out of it, Jon!’ The whole Jekyll-Hyde cliché. Especially when even his saintly hands weren’t so clean. I mean, I understand he could make friends with a lamppost, but the Distortion? Really? After all it did to you? Oh, and that lovely, oh-so-tactful question after your little story time about Gertrude and Emma?

“‘Hey, Jon, if you’d known about the dead Archivist loophole back then, would you have told everyone? Would you have killed yourself for them? Hm? Jon?’ Much as you’d like to hope it was the Web’s puppet-strings on that line, you Know better. He honestly didn’t see a thing wrong with the query. More so, because you were still buried face-first in your survivor’s guilt.

“But the Archivist noticed. The Archivist didn’t like it.

“No more than the Archivist had ever liked that Martin apparently couldn’t stomach listening to their statements, but was also blithe enough to whine at the people being tortured within the Buried, to make friends with monsters apparently in the Archivist’s social class, to prance along beside his love, blissfully untouched by the Fears due to his special status.

“A status the Archivist casually revoked. 

“You Know he’s alright, Jon. Not happy, of course. But he’ll acclimate to his domain. He’ll have to in the interim between the apparent ‘breakup’ and any hope of reconciliation. The latter will only be a possibility if you stop trying to pick up where Basira left off.

“It will never happen, Jon. The Eye won’t allow it. Hence this premature, ah, house arrest. How does it compare to the dream, if I can ask? What difference is there between dreaming of falling into the Eye’s pupil and actually being up there, in all its endless vitreous humor? Whatever it’s like, I know it’s keeping you safe from yourself. It will go on that way for months or millennia as it Sees fit. 

“When you come out, perhaps things will be better. I’d like them to be better for you. I’d like you to finally reach the acceptance stage and just…just be at peace with yourself. With reality, such as it is.

“This was not your fault, Jon. It never was. Please Know that, if nothing else. 

“I’ll See you when you’re ready to come out.

_Click._


End file.
